[xenadu02]

How is that any different than Nintendo's first-party games? They don't pay a license fee to themselves (and such an action would be a pointless accounting fiction if they did).

When you buy a Switch it means you can only play games Nintendo has approved. Unlike the app store, the policies are much more restrictive there. Random Joe can't put a game on the Switch. When you develop for the Switch it means if you have a game similar to a Nintendo game _they won't sell you a license and your product is dead in the water_.

People love to forget: The App Store was the first major distribution mechanism where anyone can join the program, no pre-vetting required, and so long as you obey the rules you can sell any app you want. Prior to that every distribution mechanism (sans selling it yourself on the web) was far more discriminatory, restricted, and took a bigger cut of your sales.

[gimmeThaBeet]

That's the point, the behavior doesn't seem different, but the levels of scrutiny aren't even comparable, that's the question. Does the behavior matter as much as the size of the market in which the actor is in. Do people care because, apple is large, because the addressable app market is large, because politicians have iphones but don't give a toss about a mario game?